"The hobby-horse," says Mr. Douce, "was represented by a man equipped
with as much pasteboard as was sufficient to form the head and hinder
parts of a horse, the quadrupedal defects being concealed by a long
mantle or footcloth that nearly touched the ground. The former, on
this occasion, exerted all his skill in burlesque horsemanship. In
Sympson's play of the Law-breakers, 1636, a miller personates the
hobby-horse, and being angry that the Mayor of the city is put in
competition with him, exclaims, 'Let the mayor play the hobby-horse
among his brethren, an he will; I hope our town-lads cannot want a
hobby-horse. Have I practised my reins, my careers, my prankers, my
ambles, my false trots, my smooth ambles, and Canterbury paces, and
shall master mayor put me beside the hobby-horse? Have I borrowed the
fore-horse bells, his plumes, his braveries; nay, had his mane new
shorn and frizzled, and shall the mayor put me beside the
hobby-horse?"
--_Douce's Illustrations_, vol. II. p. 468]
so often alluded to in our ancient drama; and which still flourishes
on the stage in the battle that concludes Bayes's tragedy. To rival
the address and agility displayed by this character, another personage
advanced in the more formidable character of a huge dragon, with
gilded wings, open jaws, and a scarlet tongue, cloven at the end,
which made various efforts to overtake and devour a lad, dressed as
the lovely Sabaea, daughter of the King of Egypt, who fled before him;
while a martial Saint George, grotesquely armed with a goblet for a
helmet, and a spit for a lance, ever and anon interfered, and
compelled the monster to relinquish his prey.
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